Not again
by ace1313
Summary: Rodney gets into another accident with an exploding ancient device, he'll never be the same man again. Set during season 1, right after episode 16. Rated T for possible later chapters


This is why you shouldn't have a Stargate Atlantis marathon after watching How To Train Your Dragon, the idea simply refused to leave my head.

More chapters might be a possibility although I'm not promising anything (well, maybe, I just can't leave damn well alone)

This is my first story I've ever released, please review.

Disclaimer:

I don't own Stargate: Atlantis or any of it's characters, if I did it wouldn't have ended after season 5 (yes, I know they're working on a movie)

* * *

Rodney groaned, his body felt like he had rolled down a flight of stairs. At least the repeated beeps of a heartbeat monitor helped him relax slightly, if he had been in an accident he was in the place he needed to be: the infirmary.

Not that he felt good at being in the infirmary but it sure beat waking up somewhere else feeling like he was half-dead, the worst of those was definitely when he woke up in a hive ship. Compared to a hive ship the infirmary was actually really nice and comfy. And besides, the infirmary had Carson and he liked Carson.

Although, he wondered, why was he there to begin with. He guessed it had something to do with the fact that he couldn't remember how he got there or why, he had been in his fair share of assorted accidents to know that amnesia was usual.

After lying there for a while he decided to find out a bit more about what was going on, just that when he tried sitting up to see what was going on his whole body protested. All that he managed to do was to elicit a loud pain-filled groan, must've been one hell of an accident he mused.

Someone must've heard the groan and gotten Carson, or maybe Carson had been there all along, because the next thing he heard was Carson's "Rodney, how are you feeling?".

His tongue didn't really want to co-operate when he answered so all he got out was a slurred "'v bee bedder."

He thought about opening his eyes but decided against it, infirmary meant bright lights and he really didn't want to add his head to the long list of things that hurt. Carson of course didn't care about anything like that as he pulled open one of Rodney's eyes and shined his penlight into it. Rodney whimpered as the bright light shot bolts of pain through his head, the extra pain causing a sensory overload which in turn sent him packing straight back into sweet oblivion.

When he woke back up again his body didn't hurt as much as it had before, and his head didn't feel like it was about to explode. He could almost go so far as to say that he felt good, or at least good_er_ than he had before.

This time he decided to open his eyes himself, much better than having them forcefully opened for a penlight. He lay there for a moment, looking up at the nondescript roof before Carson walked by and noticed he was awake again. Rodney gave him a stern look, not wanting another go with the penlight. Carson smiled at him and pulled out a chart, "Well Rodney, how do you feel?" he asked, writing down something on the chart. When Rodney didn't answer he added "Rodney, you've been in a wee accident and I need to know if you're fine".

Rodney looked at him and felt a small pang of guilt, after all it wasn't Carson that had caused the accident, he hoped, so he shouldn't take it out on the scotsman.

"Carson", Rodney started, "did the accident involve exploding ancient technology?"

Carson nodded, "Yes it did, how did you know?"

"Well, to begin with I have this strange feeling of waking up with more limbs than any human should have. And I can see it in your eyes, something is different with me." Rodney said before smiling at Carson, "You don't happen to have a mirror, do you?"

Carson looked at him, "You sure about that Rodney?"

Rodney nodded albeit slowly with much hesitation, he wouldn't ever say it but he was scared, "I need to know what has happened to me"

Carson smiled at him and dug out a small mirror before holding it up in front of Rodney.

Rodney looked into the mirror and shivered slightly when he looked straight into a pair of reptile eyes, _Still the same eye color though_ he noted semi-consciously.

Rodney stared at the mirror for a while and then turned to Carson, smiling slightly before blurting out "Well, it could have been worse" and then, very anti-climatically, fainted.

**A week later**

Rodney slowly and carefully walked into Weirs office, he still hadn't gotten used to walking on four legs (and deep down he hoped that he never would), "Please tell me you've found something"

Elizabeth Weir looked at him and smiled, "Ah Rodney, please, take a seat"

Rodney sat down on the floor between the chairs and looked pleadingly at Weir.

Weir tapped a few keys on her laptop and looked up at Rodney, "As you surely know the device itself was destroyed in the accident but the logs were undamaged and I've been going over them. From what I've been able to translate so far it seems that this device was meant to be an improved version of the ancient healing device SG-1 found back on earth. I've also been able to ascertain that he was conducting experiments on many different species, including reptiles. From the small part of the device log I've been able to access it seems that he was in the middle of a test when the evacuation order was given 48 000 years ago, he was called away before he could abort the test and then either died or forgot about it. The device has been sitting here for tens of thousands of years now, slowly building power in it's capacitors. Your actions over there seem to have activated it again and the buildup of power when it started a second test on the one already running for all this time caused the capacitors to overload and explode. The device however did what it was programmed to do and "healed" you with the data it had stored in its database, filling in the gaps with whatever it could fit."

Rodney groaned, "So the stupid machine malfunctioned, why does this always happen to me?"

Weir gave Rodney a stern look, "I hope you're aware that if the machine hadn't malfunctioned you would most likely be dead"

Rodney dismissed that, "Yeah, yeah. Anything from Carson?"

Weir smiled at Rodney, "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

Rodney muttered something and left her, grumpily walking down the corridors to the infirmary. "Carson, you here?" he asked from the doorway, a bit louder than he would usually have. When nobody answered he turned and decided to go to his lab instead, try to get at least some work done.

He sighed and slowly shook his head at the sign someone had hung over the door, "Beware of the fire-breathing terror" it said. The other scientists had been incredibly annoying to him because they apparently couldn't respect him as a dragon, leading to pranks like pieces of coal in his food and one one occasion a sacrifice in the form of a sleeping biologist tied to a pillar. It wasn't until someone had attached a collar to him when he had fallen asleep in the lab that he finally snapped, the lab in question still hadn't been properly cleaned up and still smelled of smoke. Rodney now spent most of his time in there because no other scientists dared enter, not to mention the fact that the air was slightly toxic (and Rodney had turned off the ventilation to keep it that way) for everyone bu t the dragon himself.

Rodney walked in and looked over the many computers that lined the walls, each of them either running a simulation or just sitting there compiling some new program he was working on. He slid one over in front of him and grabbed a glove of sorts that he had made after he realized he couldn't use his claws without damaging the sensitive equipment. He slid the rubber pieces over his claws and started tapping away at the laptop, writing up a few emails and a requisition order for some dragon friendly furniture, pillows mostly. He figured that if he was going to be a dragon for a while then he would at least be a comfortable dragon, not that he found even lying on the floor uncomfortable anymore; something to do with the scales he guessed.

The door chimed and he looked up, sliding the laptop away before walking over to the door and swishing a wing in front of the crystals (he hadn't really bothered with learning how to fly though, learning to walk and run properly came before that).

Carsons "Ah, there you are lad" met him and he couldn't help but smile a bit, he really liked the scotsman. "Hello Carson" he answered, "Did you want anything?"

Carson looked over his head at all the computers in the lab and wrinkled his nose at the smell, carbon-dioxide and ozone didn't really smell good to humans Rodney guessed; to him it smelled like home. He took a step into the corridor and let the door close behind him, making sure to keep his tail out of its way; he had gotten his tail squeezed in door a lot of times and it hurt like hell; "So, what have you learned?" he asked while setting off on a course towards the infirmary.

Carson looked at him and smiled nervously before pulling out a chart and ticking off somethings on it, "Well lad, I've been going over the blood samples and I let some of the scientists look at your scales; I have some good news and some bad news."

Rodney cringed at that, he really didn't like bad news; "Let's talk about it in the infirmary, shall we?"

Carson nodded, said a quick "Aye, let's do that" and they walked the rest of the way in silence. Carson leading the way into the infirmary and then up to a large screen on the wall where lots of medical data was scrolling by. Carson stopped in front of the screen and looked at Rodney, "Well, it's taken us a while to go through it all. I even had to rerun all the tests myself afterwards because I couldn't believe it at first."

He then pointed out two areas on the screen, "These are your readings from your latest blood test before the _incident_." he then pointed at two others, "and these are afterwards, the first thing we noticed is that your DNA structure has large changes, not mutations as we first thought but rather it seems like they have just been plain replaced."

Rodney stopped him there, "And this is interesting, why exactly?"

Carson tapped a specific piece of information, "This here is what I like to call the age measurement, it's a way to calculate someone's age by the amount of times their cells have been divided. Your earlier results place you around 30 to 40 years old, which is good all things considered. Your newer tests however place you at an age of around 8 years, give or take."

Rodney stared at him for a second and then blurted out "What? Eight years? Are you sure?"

Carson nodded, "Aye Rodney, I've run the tests several times. Whatever the machine did to you completely revitalized your body, which brings me to the good news. According to this data you're in no danger of dying any time soon, a educated guess would give you quite a long life actually.".

Rodney looked at him and raised an eyebrow, "How long _exactly_?"

Carson cleared his throat, "Erm, three thousand years or so"

Rodney stared at him for a few seconds before sitting down, "Wow, and I who was afraid of not seeing my nephews grow old."

Carson walked over to stand next to him, placing a hand on his lower neck, just where it joined his body and sighed; "Which in turn brings me to the bad news, if this data is correct then there's no way we can turn you back into a human, sorry Rodney".

When Rodney didn't say anything for a while Carson turned to leave, he had just reached the door when he heard Rodney behind him; "Hey Carson".

Carson turned around and looked at the scientist who was still sitting there, staring at the screen.

Rodney looked at him, his eyes had a strange glimmer in them he hadn't seen before. Rodney smiled a wide smile at him before saying, in a matter-of-fact voice, "I'm going to fly" and then swishing past him, his four legs propelling him faster than any human on the base could possibly reach. Carson turned after him just in time to see Rodney jump over the edge of a balcony and disappear.

**Sheppard**

John was leaning against the railing outside the control room, trying to puzzle together the brief flashes he had of whatever had happened a week ago. Apparently it had only been him and McKay in the room with the machine and although he had been close enough to have been knocked against a wall pretty hard McKay had been standing right next to the device, working on one of it's access hatches.

He heard a strange sound and looked up just in time to see something blue flying straight at him, the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground and a small-ish dragon stood over him, the sun glinting off it's scales. He managed a "Whu?" before the dragon gave him something that would closest be described as a hug and very very excitedly exclaimed "I flew John, did you see?"

The next thing that happened was that Carson came running out on the balcony and almost tripped on them before he saw them. He then looked at Rodney the dragon and John, noting the hug and took a step backwards muttering "Oh I'm so sorry for disturbing" before being knocked to the ground and hugged by a very excited dragon, one that kept repeating "I flew. Did you see? I flew"

It took a minute or so for McKay to finally calm down and then he immediately excused to both John and Carson for knocking them down and then dived over the banister with a loud "Weeeeeeee!"

John and Carson both looked at each other and then walked over to the railing, looking down at the feint blue spot that was dodging around the buildings. They were soon joined by more and more people until most of the command crew where standing there looking down at the impromptu flight show.

John just shook his head and muttered "Show off"

**The next day**

Rodney stretched and groaned, his back hurt from all the flapping and he was pretty sure it was going to take a while before he could move his tail again. He looked around his room and then stood up, yawned loudly and walked over to his table, grabbing one of the pieces of coal that were stacked under it.

He hadn't told anyone but he hadn't disliked the coal-in-food prank as much as he had made it seem like he did. Coal as it turned out worked just like coffee for the dragon, and that was a relief to him after having spent a week without the addictive drink. (He had tried some coffee and then spent the entire next day in the infirmary with severe stomach cramps)

He sat there on the floor and nibbled on the piece of coal, thinking back at the day before and he realized one thing. He had decided that if he weren't able to be human then he wouldn't pretend to be, he had finally decided what he wanted to be. He wanted to be the best darn dragon in the Pegasus galaxy. And he was seriously looking forward to the day they reestablished contact with earth just to see the faces of the IOA.

The next person to pass the lab would've noticed that the shabby sign that used to hang above the door of the lab now was replaced with a larger sign on the wall next to the door that said "Beware of the dragon, enter at your own peril"

They would also notice that the room name had been changed from "Lab1" to "Den" or "The Dragons Den"

They would also undoubtedly noticed the blue dragon that swooshed by above their heads in the larger corridors and outside the windows on the nicer days.

For once in his life Rodney was completely content with his situation.


End file.
